The next few days passed very quickly. Days in which the von Trapp household experienced a complete transformation. Laughter, joy and music filled it again after many, too many years of silence.
Days were spent playing, singing, and above all, becoming reacquainted again with the estranged father who had been sorely missed.
The children could barely hold back the need to just be with their father, and feel they still were a part of his life.
The unrestrained excitement of seven needful children could get quite overwhelming, and Maria did her best to soothe the edge of that need so that no one's feelings got hurt. She subtly arranged for the children to spend some quality time with their father separately, so they had the chance to bond with him naturally, with no witnesses, not even their own siblings. That would give father and child the opportunity to rebuild their relationship at its own pace, with no outside interferences.
It worked. One mere week later, the children played, talked and behaved around their father as if the last few years had never happened.
The big challenge now was coming up with more activities they could engage in together or in groups every single day. Maria's imagination and creativity were put to the test.
Depending on the weather, the activities took place either indoors or outdoors. If it was a clear and sunny day, everybody would go out and play tag, freeze tag, ball, steal the bacon and many other games. If it was rainy, they'd stay inside, playing with dolls, cards, reading, drawing, or doing some craftwork, like cutout, clay modelling or carving wood, something Friedrich excelled at. Of course, their studies were not forgotten.
Often, if he wasn't too occupied with the baroness and Herr Detweiler, or minding the business of the household, the Captain dropped by to see how his children were doing.
One particular rainy morning, the children and Maria were engrossed in several activities in the living room. Maria had insisted that the children were allowed to play in one of the lounges, claiming that they were more spacious. She asked for several metres of useless cloth to cover the furniture and the floor, so nothing was damaged, and the Captain granted them with one of his smiles of amusement that had become so typical of him.
Liesl and Louisa were playing cards at a table, Friedrich was carving what appeared to be a ship on wood, Kurt was charcoal drawing a landscape, and Brigitta, Marta, Gretl and Maria were clay modelling on a small table, sitting on the covered floor. Brigitta was trying to make a bowl - quite unsuccessfully - and Marta and Gretl were simply getting dirty, kneading the clay into meatball-sized shapes, and then slapping them flat. Maria wasn't trying to make anything in particular, she was just playing with the clay, enjoying the feel of it in her hands, creating random forms and then breaking them up.
"Busy?" a soft voice asked from the doorway all of a sudden.
Everybody turned their heads, and the childen broke out into joyous greetings at the sight of their father, inviting him to come in.
"What are you doing?" Georg said, his eyes sweeping around the room. He smiled at Liesl and Louisa, nodding to them to go on with their card game. He took a look at Kurt's drawing, commending his technique and ruffling his hair, and his eyes lit up on seeing Friedrich's carving. He squeezed his son's shoulder in encouragement, and turned to the little girls and their governess.
"And what are you ladies up to?" he asked, squatting down.
Marta and Gretl showed their father their just finished clay meatballs and then proceeded to smash them with the palms of their hands. Georg and Maria exchanged an amused look and shook their heads at each other, hiding their mirth.
"And what's my little artist doing?" he asked Brigitta, giving her a quick one-armed hug.
"I'm trying to make a bowl," Brigitta replied, worrying at her lower lip, very frustrated with herself. "But I can't make the base round enough."
"But darling," Georg smiled, "you can't do that with just your hands. You need a pattern."
"A pattern?" Brigitta blinked up at her father in confusion.
"Yes, a round shape you can cut around." He looked up and searched the room. "Let's see..." he saw a small vase on a little table in the corner of the room, and stood up. "This will do." He went for it and brought it back. "Press down on the clay, and you'll get a perfect round base."
"Oh, thank you, Father!" Brigitta's eyes shone with delight.
Georg smiled and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand.
"Stay and play with us, Father! Please!" Marta asked then, looking up at her father entreatingly with her big, expressive eyes.
Automatically, Georg's eyes turned to Maria, who just grinned at him and nodded. Making up his mind, he took off his jacket and his tie, placing them on the back of the couch behind him, and rolled up his sleeves.
"All right," he clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "What do you want me to do?" he asked, sitting on the floor between Brigitta and Marta.
"Anything you want," Brigitta said, passing on to him a handful of clay.
"Well, it's been many years since I clay modelled, but I'll see what I can do." Georg buried his fingers in the clay and made a face at its coldness. When he got used to it, he began to knead it skilfully, focusing all his attention on the matter at hand.
Maria and the girls completely forgot about what they were doing, and watched the long, slender fingers modelling the clay with riveting expertise.
Georg used the vase he had given Brigitta to make the base of what appeared to be a second bowl. Then, he kneaded long rolls and attached them all around the base, one on top of the other. In just a few minutes he completed the bowl. After that, he spent an equal amount of time fusing the rolls together until there was no trace of them and the surface was perfectly flat and even.
Maria couldn't take her eyes off those graceful hands as they worked with breathtaking elegance and precision.
"So, Fräulein..."
The Captain's voice shook her out of her trance and she raised her eyes to his.
"Yes?"
"Do you think that after this I'm going to need some play clothes too?" he asked with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
Maria burst out laughing wholeheartedly.
"Only if you intend to make a habit out of clay modelling, sir," she rejoined after recovering. "For some reason, I can't picture you in play clothes."
"Oh," Georg smiled. "I hope that doesn't mean you consider me boring."
"Far from it, Captain," Maria hastened to amend her words, in case they had given the wrong impression. "I consider you a very interesting personality."
Their eyes met again and locked onto each other for some time.
"The feeling's mutual," he said, in soft acknowledgment.
Not used to being complimented, Maria didn't know how to respond. She looked down, glowing inside that he thought so apparently highly of her. She rubbed the tip of her nose with the back of her hand and returned to her own modelling, but her eyes turned involuntarily to his hands and the beautiful thing he was creating out of such crude material.
"Did you also play with your mummy and daddy when you were little, Fräulein Maria?" Gretl asked out of the blue.
Caught off-balance by the child's question, Maria felt as if something had hit her in the guts.
"No, sweetie," she said, forcing a smile so the little girl didn't notice the effect her question had had on her. "I had lost both my parents by the time I was your age."
The silence that ensued could have been cut with a knife. Maria felt the Captain stiffening in reaction to her reply.
"I'm so very sorry, Fräulein Maria," Brigitta reached out across the table and held her hand, squeezing it gently.
"It's all right, darling," Maria squeezed the small hand back, fighting to regain her composure. "Now don't get distracted from what your father's doing!" she shook the hand in hers with a conspiratorial smile. "Isn't it beautiful?"
"Ooohh!" the three girls exclaimed when they saw the medium-sized cup. Georg was adding the final touches on the delicate handle, making sure it was thoroughly fused to the cup itself. "Father, it's beautiful!" they said in unison.
"Do you like it?" Georg said, moving the cup around in his hand so they could look at it from every angle.
"Oh, yes. It's perfect!" Brigitta couldn't look away from it.
With a smile, Georg put it on the table and used a piece of cloth to wipe his hands. Immediately, Gretl reached for it.
"Don't touch it, honey!" Maria quickly took the little girl's hand in her own, that way keeping it away from the cup. "You've seen how soft clay is. If you grabbed it your fingers would leave marks on it."
"But I want Father to make more cups so we can play with them," Gretl complained.
"I will make all the cups you want, darling," Georg promised his daughter, "but you'll still have to wait until the clay gets dry to play with it."
"And how long will it take to get dry?" Gretl asked, growing impatient already.
"One day or two," Georg said, anticipating already the face of annoyance on his youngest's features.
"But remember that even dry, it'll still be extremely fragile," Maria reminded the little girls. "If you dropped it to the floor, it would shatter."
"Oh," Gretl said, looking at the cup warily now.
"Like many things in life, they seem tough and firm on the outside, but they're actually very tender and frail inside." Georg realized his words held a hidden, deeper meaning than he had intended for them to have, and wondered what made him say them. They were beyond his daughters' understanding.
"You have to be very gentle when you're handling them, so they last for a very long time," the intensity in Maria's voice echoed Georg's, as if completing some unspoken common thought.
Instinctively, their eyes sought each other, and they felt some sort of connection taking place between them. Some kind of eerie understanding at an elemental level.
"Father!" Kurt called, walking up to them. "Lunchtime's getting closer. Can we go and wash our hands?"
Humour raised from both their depths, and they shared a knowing smile.
"Of course. Go ahead," Georg waved the hand with the cloth in it.
Maria turned to the girls at the table.
"You can go too. I'll clear the room."
"All right," Brigitta nodded, rising to her feet. "Come on!" she urged her little sisters.
A few seconds later, Georg and Maria were alone in the room.
"Ouch!" Maria's legs wobbled when she stood up.
"What is it?" the Captain asked, reaching out one hand and steadying her.
"My legs have gone to sleep," she said with a short laugh, bending down and rubbing her calves briskly. "I guess I've been sitting in that position for too long."
"Do you also have problems keeping still, like my children?" Georg teased with a smile.
"If persuaded, I can keep still just like the next person," she quipped, with a shake of her head.
He let out a rumble of laughter, very pleased with her witty reply. Wordlessly, he helped her to uncover the furniture. Only the carpet under the small table where they had been clay-modelling and the table itself were covered. Friedrich had been very careful while carving, and he had gathered together all the splinters he had cut away, and taken them with him. Together, they moved the table aside and Maria rolled up the cloth on the floor.
Georg watched her, full of curiosity. This young woman was a study in contrasts. Innocent, outspoken, with firm beliefs, stubborn, optimistic, always ready to help anybody who needed it, and extremely protective of the children's feelings. She seemed to know instinctively how to approach each one of them, treating them as individuals, not a group. But there were some scars in that spirited soul too. He had been shocked at the naked sight of them when she had revealed she was already an orphan at Gretl's age. Her words had a profound impact on him.
He had misjudged her on so many levels. He had treated her as if she was barely an adult, with no experience of the world, coming as she did from a convent, apart from the real problems of the real people.
He had forgotten that life has the nasty habit of hitting you hard. It's impossible to have reached adulthood without having seen and experienced first-hand the most merciless side of life.
From what he had learned today, life had hit her earlier in life than it hit most people.
But she didn't want compassion or pity. She embraced life too enthusiastically to waste a moment feeling sorry for herself.
At that moment, Maria turned about and looked at him, her face slightly flushed after bending down, holding an armload of cloth to her front.
A wave of affection that he couldn't hold back swept him away, and Georg smiled at her.
Her eyes opened wide at his spontaneous smile, clearly disconcerted.
"Ah, I'll come back now for the cup," she said. "I'll keep it in my room until it gets dry."
Georg nodded.
"I'll have to complete the set in the next few days," he sighed with fake resignation.
Maria chuckled.
"I'm afraid so, sir." She looked down at the cup resting on a little piece of cloth on the table. "It's really beautiful. You're very gifted," she met his eyes squarely, with open admiration.
Georg smiled again.
"And you're very messy," he said out of the blue, his smile broadening.
"Excuse me?" Maria's eyes almost popped out of their sockets at the non-sequitur.
Reaching out with the cloth he had used to clean his hands, Georg wiped the mark she had on the tip of her nose.
"You left a smudge of clay when you rubbed your nose earlier."
"Oh," Maria blushed in embarrassment, making a face. "It happens to me all the time. I guess I am messy."
Georg dropped his arm.
"Your secret's safe with me," he reassured her humorously.
"Don't bother. It's an open secret, Captain," she gave him a one-armed shrug.
Georg laughed again, disarmed by her honesty and her capacity to laugh at herself. He found it incredibly refreshing.
Maria smiled at his smile. For the first time, she noticed how youthful he looked every time he laughed.
"Well, I'd better see how the children are doing," she said after a moment. "They never just wash their hands."
"Oh, I believe you," Georg nodded emphatically.
Maria nodded back and turned around. When she was leaving the room, she heard him calling her softly.
"Fräulein."
"Yes?" she asked, half-turning.
"You're very gifted, too," he said meaningfully, suddenly serious.
Taken aback by the totally unexpected praise, Maria simply stood where she was, blinking in astonishment.
"Thank you, sir. It's very kind of you to say so," she finally articulated her thoughts in a coherent manner. A soft blush covered her cheeks as she left.
A couple of days later, Maria entered the lounge where the Captain, Baroness Schraeder and Max Detweiler were enjoying a quiet evening, engaged in a relaxed conversation.
"Excuse me, Captain," she said, somewhat shyly.
"Yes, Fräulein," Georg smiled on seeing her, sitting up straighter.
"I wanted to talk to you about something."
The vagueness of her request piqued Georg's curiosity and he rose to his feet.
"Certainly," he nodded. "Excuse us for a moment," he told Max and Elsa. He escorted Maria out of the room and into the hall. "What is it?" he asked, turning to her.
Maria looked down at her hands, obviously uncomfortable with the subject she wanted to broach.
"Is there something wrong?" Georg asked, a bit alarmed.
"Oh, no sir!" she looked up at him, looking for the right words. "Well, you see... ah, I wanted to talk to you about my salary."
"Your salary!?" Georg bent forward, as if he couldn't believe what he had just heard.
"Yes." Maria looked away. "Last week, I asked you to have my salary sent to the Abbey, so the sisters put it to good use."
"Yes?" Georg prompted, infinitely curious now.
Maria braved his eyes again and let it all out in one go.
"I wanted to ask you to let me keep a part of it. I just found out that Friedrich's birthday will be next week, and I realized that I'll need some money to buy the children presents as their birthdays are coming up, and..."
Georg closed his eyes, shook his head and burst out laughing.
Maria stared up at him, stupefied.
"Oh, bless you, Fräulein. You're absolutely extraordinary!" he managed to utter in between laughs.
Not knowing how to respond to that, Maria simply stood there, a little smile on her face at the sight of his hearty laughter.
When he pulled himself together, Georg looked at her, still shaking his head.
"Request granted, Fräulein Maria. The third part of your salary will suffice?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. It'll be more than enough, thank you," Maria nodded, sounding positively relieved.
At that, Georg gazed at her with a fond look in his eyes.
"No, Fräulein. Thank *you*," he said.
Blinking innocently, Maria smiled up at him.
Laughter coming from outside drew both their attention.
"They're waiting for me," Maria explained. "I'll join them now."
Georg nodded to her.
Maria went out and closed the door after her. Georg stared at the closed doors for a few moments, then looked down and shook his head once more, the fond smile returning to his lips.
TO BE CONTINUED...